dsc07714.jpg

"Houston, We Have a Problem ..."

A car-sized bubble of air, light, and warmth, 170,000 miles from Earth.
Suddenly, an explosion, and the cold, dark vacuum of space crept in. Never
before had American astronauts come so close to death as Jim Lovell, Fred
Haise, and Jack Swigert did on Apollo 13, when an oxygen
tank explosion severely damaged the Command Module Odyssey.
Teamwork in space and on Earth won out against the odds.

The museum chose to perpetuate the inaccuracy popularized by the movie Apollo
13: The astronauts never actually uttered the phrase "Houston,
we have a problem."

Referring to the mission
transcript, at 055:55:20 mission elapsed time, Jack Swigert said, "I
believe we've had a problem here." Mission Control apparently didn't
understand, so they requested, "This is Houston. Say again, please." To which
Jim Lovell replied, "Houston, we've had a problem."

In the movie, Kevin Bacon (playing Swigert) and Tom Hanks (playing Lovell) both say, "We have a
problem."